Planning Ahead - What Western port activities should we try?

[Lady_Jag]

Well, I tried getting some clues from the Ports of Call boards, but nothing seemed to fit our needs.

 

My daughter will be 4 when we sail the Carnival Dream in May 2010. We sailed the Carnival Glory this past May on an Eastern Caribbean route, and she had a ball!

 

Our next cruise, though, will visit the following ports. Any recommendations for a group of 5 that includes, me, hubby, our 4-year-old, my 60-year-old mom (who is anti-beach and has bad knees), and our family friend who's in her late-50's?

• Cozumel
  
• Belize (I'm very concerned about visiting this port, so will probably book through the ship.)
  
• Roatan (And I'm almost as concerned about visiting this port)
  
• Costa Maya
  

Thanks for any insight or suggestions you have!

[cb at sea]

Get a guidebook on your ports (libraries have them, or you can buy them at a bookstore!) and read up on what each place has to offer. THEN, you can make a decision...you may find that you don't actually NEED to buy an excursion...some things are easy to do on your own!

The guidebooks have a wealth of info....do a little research before you spend your money!

[crusinmama06]

Cozumel - Paradise Beach - taxi ride and then you can buy wristbands for all inclusive food/alcohol

 

Belize - personally we left the kids onboard with family and did the ATV Jungle tour which was awesome - but most people don't have the option of family/friends onboard. And aren't comfortable leaving them in AO. So...the option I see mentioned most often for people with young kids - the Belize Boat/Zoo tour. I heard the City Bus/Zoo tour isn't as nice. But going in the boat on the way to the zoo is the highlight.

 

Belize is a very poor country and honestly, I never felt unsafe there. I didn't find the vendors pushy or anything. I was pleasantly surprised. However, there are dogs everywhere. Belize is just overrun with stray dogs. I was amazed to see them. We love all animals so we were sad to see all of the many many strays fending for themselves. :(

 

Roatan - never been there.

 

Costa Maya - easy port day. The port is developed into a tourist area. It is very fake though. Created just for the cruise ship guests. So if you want to see more of Costa Maya, then you will have to leave the port area, you can take taxis to Mahahual Beach but they have had problems with pushy vendors in the past. But they were suppose to be working on them.

 

I'll post some pictures of those areas....

Port Area at Belize

 

 

 

Port Area at Costa Maya - the pool is free to use, lounge chairs all around it and a swim up bar

 

 

 

[Mack2]

CruiseCritic has a good resource for ports of call:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=587

 

Additionally, I found that TripAdvisor.com is also a very good resource.

 

 

It's all user rated opinions, Some opinions can be a little outrageous (positive and negative) but you can definitely pick out some trends by reading between the lines.

 

Cozumel - There's a great thread right now in this forum regarding Cozumel

Costa Maya - Crusinmama06 is pretty spot on.

 

We booked a Carnival cruise this fall that is hitting both Belize and Honduras.. two ports we have never been to.

I'm looking forward to some adventure.

 

I know outside of the cruise industry, Belize has been one of THE places to go to for SCUBA diving... which doesn't help me since we're traveling with 3 kids.

[CeleBrat]

Another option for Belize--the Ruins/River excursion, which includes a boat trip through a rivee to view wildlife like dolphins, macaws, and monkeys. Then, a visit to the Altun Ha ruins. It was an all day trip, and at the times our kids were 4 and 6 (I think). I'd recommend it!

 

And, to clarify about Paradise Beach, the wristbands that you buy are for the water toys, NOT food/drink. Those are ala carte, and you pay-as-you-go. Pics and info about Paradise Beach are on page on of the MSC Orchestra review in my signature.

 

CeleBrat

[rebeccalouise]

Roatan is one of those places that you either love or hate. I loved it. It is very primative. There aren't lots of shops. What we did was grab a taxi and asked to go to the nicest beach. It was about a 20 minute drive to the beach with photo op stops along route. The driver will want you to pay for a roundtrip fare, which we did and he was there waiting for us at the alloted time. The beach was nice and had a restaurant. I really liked it because it was different from other places that I have been to in the Caribbean. My son's 21 year old friend just came back and he loved it but the other three weren't wild about it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[Lady_Jag]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Cruisinmama, those are great pics! I was in Cozumel and Costa Maya in 2004 (before babies and before the damaging hurricane). A lot's changed since then, but it's good to see that Costa Maya has been rebuilt and still has the big pool. :)

[speedster]

We just did the same itinirary...

 

Grand Cayman - 7 mile beach at the Palm

Cozumel - take a cab downtown, walk around

Belize - unless you do an excursion, stay on the ship. It is a 25 minute long tender, and there isn't much to do at the pier, unless you plan to get past the gate

Roatan - Fins & Flippers - it's $15 per person, a 2 minute walk from the pier, and a 3 minute boat ride to a private island with a huge pool, nice beach, snorkling, and some animals too.

[Lady_Jag]

We just did the same itinirary...

 

Grand Cayman - 7 mile beach at the Palm

Cozumel - take a cab downtown, walk around

Belize - unless you do an excursion, stay on the ship. It is a 25 minute long tender, and there isn't much to do at the pier, unless you plan to get past the gate

Roatan - Fins & Flippers - it's $15 per person, a 2 minute walk from the pier, and a 3 minute boat ride to a private island with a huge pool, nice beach, snorkling, and some animals too.

 

Thank you! This is great. Hubby and I actually considered using Camp Carnival and making Belize a "spa day" since we have a spa cabin. I will check out the Fins & Flippers for Roatan too. :D

[MamaParrotHead]

We have a large and varied group going with us as well, going on *almost* the same route in November.

 

We chose:

 

Chankanaab in Cozumel (we really loved Paradise Beach, but don't see much for younger kids to do there...all the water toys are for bigger kids). Chank has a beginner's snorkel area, the animals (dolphin encounters, if you're interested), a pool, a playground right on the beach, neat mini-Mayan ruin replicas.

 

Belize: Bannister Island/Manatee Preserve tour through Coral Breeze (we opted to add the hour of snorkeling on as well, but it's optional).

 

Roatan: we're just doing the Tabayana Beach Day through the ship (the beach looks gorgeous and I'd like to see atleast a LITTLE of the countryside on the way to and from the beach on the bus).

 

We were actually supposed to be going to Costa Maya (before they booted the Glory out of Pt. Canaveral to make room for the Dream) and we had just planned on having it be a cheap beach day right at the pier.

[hooked-on-travel]

Since the OP's mom is anti-beach I'll put in a vote for going to see the ruins with Ivan in Costa Maya. Search for his name in the Costa Maya board. His English is great (since he went to college in the U.S.) but he grew up literally in the shadow of the archeologists rebuilding the site. It's an hour to and from and an hour or two at the site. You take a taxi/bus to Majahual (few bucks) and then meet him to go on the trip. Mom's knees might not let her climb the steps to the top of the high temple, but still a good tour.

 

Roatan doesn have the prettiest white sand beach, but you can also make a non beach day by hiring a cab for the day and saying you want to see the sights/animals. You'll want to have an idea of what sites you'd like to see ahead of time, so do read some on the boards. Not every post is about which zip line to do. For example, the cameo factory isn't much, but it's kind of neat.

[RENMama]

We are doing same itin. on Dream this Dec. with our 8,4,2 yo and my mid 50's parents. We love to snorkel but my mom wont unless she can walk out from the beach. My dh has bad knees, my dad has bad ankles.

Our kids in general are easy to please. As long as they are out seeing/doing something they are happy.

 

CM- I think we may all do the ruins/mayan experience non ship tour recommended on the boards. Our dd is Mayan and we want to see some ruins. Last stop in CM we just stayed at the port which was great too.

 

Coz-Thinking maybe Passion or Paradise Island

 

Roatan- Debating between Victor and fins. Leanings towards Victor though as we may be able to more personalize the tour to make everyone happy.

 

Belize-I was considering the Altun/River tour thru Carnival. However, its min. age of 4 and our youngest will only be 2.5 at sail time. So now Im thinking of taking the manatee nonship tour.

[Lady_Jag]

Wow! Thanks everyone! You've given me a lot to consider.

 

MamaParrotHead, I think Chakanaab is right up our alley. I'm considering the dolphin encounter for me, DH, and DD (directly through the park, since the age limit through Carnival is too high.) We'll see, though. We might just skip the encounter and hang out at the park, then do a little shopping near the pier.

 

hooked-on-travel, Thanks for the suggestion. You are correct - my mom would not be very happy with a beach day. My only concern with a private excursion in Costa Maya is that the ship won't be there too long - 10:00am-3:00pm, I think. I'll have to check again, though, and see if we'll have enough time.

 

RENMama, I love your plan! Please, please, please report back after your Dream cruise and happy sailing!

[hooked-on-travel]

Yeah, 5 hours will be very close. You really need 4 to make it work. Maybe contact Ivan and see what he recommends? I would trust him to say, "No, when that ship comes into town we don't get to do the tour," or "Yeah, on those ship days we skip x and as long as we leave Majahual by whenever we can drop you off at the pier at whatever time." I'm sure your ship goes to Costa Maya every week, so he'll be familiar with the schedule. He might be able to suggest something closer. It could be worth a shot. Worse he can say is "Sorry, can't help you." Five hours is really a short stop...especially when you back off and say you might not get there exactly on time and you have to be back on the ship, what, a half hour before sail time?

[AJMissal]

I would do the dolphin swim. It is the best thing we ever did as a family and the park is beautiful. Will go back for sure. And the snorkeling there is great, take crackers off the ship.